epidemiology | [EVENT POST] I FEEL STUPID, AND CONTAGIOUS.

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[EVENT POST] I FEEL STUPID, AND CONTAGIOUS.

CHARACTERS: Open to all!
DATE: 3/11-3/12, ICly
WARNINGS: Zombie attacks? Violence? Shopping???
SUMMARY: Lockdown at the mall! Grab your CDs and your soft pretzel, it's about to get bad.

LET'S GO TO THE MALL

LOCKDOWN

Business has been rough for Woodhurst Shopping Center ever since riots and unrest about the Bristol Virus have shunned most to their homes. Perhaps ill-advisedly, in attempts to draw a few more customers back into the polished halls of the grandest shopping experience Woodhurst has to offer, a weekend of big sales, great bargains, and fun family activities was widely advertised in the Woodhurst Watch. There was even a scheduled public concert, performed by the University Choir.

The turnout was smaller than hoped, yet the air was quite optimistic. Shoppers enjoyed the day of activities and fun, and the sense of security was bolstered by the increased security detail. There was even some members of the press on hand to document this return to normality in a troubled time. Everything was going well, until a scene broke out in the food court.

Security tried to quietly remove members of the choir that suddenly seemed to snap, plowing into one of the food stands and starting to feed on raw meat. However, a good handful of them escaped instant confinement, and while many of the visitors fled the mall as soon as they could, soon Police Detail arrived and put the entire building on lockdown. Nobody in and nobody out until the situation was resolved.

18:00 TO 23:00 HOURS

Anyone unlucky enough to be trapped in the mall is left to their own devices, with very little knowledge to go on. This includes many civilians, as well as a small number of Audentes agents. This also includes a small number of infected, more than just the university choir. There's a voice over the loudspeaker imploring people to hide in stores, barricade doors, and stay put until help arrives.

The majority of the infected seem to linger in the Food Court especially. Bad news for anyone trapped and starting to get hungry as the hours pass by, without any obvious assistance from the outside. The members of ALASTAIR have a choice, help protect or just do their best to avoid the infected themselves. Characters can get into the Security Office for a camera feed on what is happening in the mall, and potentially use it as a base of operations to work from.

00:00 TO 02:00 HOURS

It becomes apparent that the number of infected in the mall are somehow increasing, despite the lockdown. It means that those that have squirreled away into stores and outlets are growing less and less safe as infected numbers multiply and they begin attacking barricades. To make matters worse, anyone that hasn't found cover will find the infected extremely reactive, and willing to give chase around the mall.

The security feed indicates the infected seem to be coming in from the Parking Garage. Investigation will reveal a sewer outlet on the bottom floor. Characters will have to decide whether they should utilize the tunnel as a means of escape, or if sealing it off would ultimately leave the remaining hours of lockdown a little less violent.

04:00 TO 09:00 HOURS

It's been an agonizing 12 hours, and with surprisingly little aide from the outside. With time to make preparations and put plans in place, now it's time to end this lockdown once and for all. Audentes is tasked with neutralizing the remaining infected as well as escorting any remaining civilians to safety, by any means they decide on.

It is up to Audentes to decide how the end of this event plays out, be it removing or otherwise drawing away the lingering infected, or putting them down once and for all. There are plenty of civilians that have been bitten and attacked, leaving the question in the air as to whether they are infected as well. What should be done with those that could be bringing the virus back to their families? The team is going to have to decide on the answer to that.

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[This, he supposes, is simply Giorno's way. Jin knows when he's not in charge, and, for once, he's content to accept that much-- with a soft 'hmph' of acknowledgment, he nods at the two younger boys.]

Don't worry. I'm cool as a cucumber.

[kung jin you're so fucking lame

He skims the crowd a second time, finding a relatively clear path amongst the host of people scurrying about. Without further smartass commentary, as requested, he's moving forward: his pace even and steady, so Fugo and Giorno can follow him safely.]

[He will do this. Not he can: he will, because he has to. Fugo doesn't trust Jin-- but he does trust Giorno. And if Giorno trusts Jin to make a way, Fugo will follow him. He looks out at the crowd and feels sick with the knowledge that, in a few steps, they'll be part of that tightly-packed press of people. He can't-- look. If he looks, it will all go wrong. Just thinking about it is making his chest feel painfully tight and send prickles of painful anxiety crawling up and down his back and neck.

Before they start to move, his free hand snakes out and grabs a handful of Jin's jacket; he means to hold it loosely, but his grip is tight enough that his knuckles are white. Once he's certain that the three of them are tethered together, Fugo wrenches his eyes shut. His grip on Giorno's hand is like a vise.]

[Left foot. Right foot. While they walk, Fugo begins to recite the ways he knows how to pick locks: of which there are many, all of which he quietly explains in a soft, mild-mannered voice that might belong to a student reading a page from a textbook while he blindly follows Jin to the department store.]

[It's awful to not be able to just fix situations like this. It feels wrong. If he were at home, he'd speak one quiet word and everyone, panic or no panic, would part like the Red Sea to make way for his Fugo. But here, this is the best he can do.]

[And he does it well. God, does he ever--he hates it, but he focuses, and he stays calm, and he functions. He's so good at functioning.]

[Even if there's a moment, just before they start moving, that Fugo reaches out and grabs hold of Jin's jacket, and in that moment Giorno feels his heart breaking. Like a bone; his heart has always been so brittle anyway. In that moment, he looks up and meets Jin's eyes. The pain is so clear in him that he might as well be bleeding.]

[Do you understand now?]

[And then they move. Giorno paces himself; he's careful, watchful, with Gold Experience coming out to bring up the rear behind him. He feels for the pulses of everyone around him, keeps careful track--and it's a lot to think about, but for Fugo and for Jin and for the safety of everyone in here, he does it. A quarter of the way through the journey, he turns to Fugo and murmurs: Good job. I've got you. Halfway, the same: Halfway there, you can do it, I've got you. Three-quarters: Almost there, almost. You're amazing. Keep your eyes closed, I've got you.]

[And then it's over. For now. They cross the threshold in a line, Jin and Fugo and Giorno and Gold Experience; Giorno turns so his back is to the store, his eyes fixed and sharp on the crowd they've left behind. Then he exhales sharply and refocuses.]

Fugo, let go for a moment, please. Jin, bring the grate down. Then come back and stay next to us, please.

[He catches Fugo's other hand and pulls him close with both at once, looking at him with intent concern.]

Fugo. It's okay. You can open your eyes, we made it. You're safe, non hai male a nessuno.

[Jin . . . can't know. Yet. But he'll have to, soon. He will.]

[Jin steps forward and for a moment there's no give. The fist, balled into his jacket, tugs him backward and to a halt; he pauses, thrown off by that resistance. He expects the slight fingers of Giorno Giovanna curled into the fabric of the coat when he cranes his neck to look back over his shoulder.

Not Fugo's.

He catches Giorno's gaze just then, the comprehension of the situation now reflecting in his own eyes. The boy's face is pinched in an expression of silent, aching grief that he has only seen once before, months ago. (I would share his burden--because I knew it was too heavy for him to carry all on his own.) And his annoyance with Fugo's know-it-all attitude, his quiet restraint, falls immediately to the wayside of Jin's mind in favor of the too-lean build, the dark rings under the boy's sharp eyes. He thinks of the occasional odd tilt to Giorno's sentences and the calculated distance in his words, far removed from his bright, radiating charisma. Although it seems ridiculous to forget, he remembers how much taller and broader he is than his companions; he remembers the significance of those odd-handful of years he's lived longer than Fugo and Giorno, and Fugo's fist building wrinkles into his jacket doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter, because damn it, they are all getting out of this building alive.

In this moment, the two of them are only boys. Whatever may anchor them, Jin will choose to share.

He takes one short step. Half a step, really. He waits until he hears Giorno's footsteps against the shopping mall's tile, and then Fugo's. He takes one more, then moves forward at an even pace. Never too brisk for Fugo, whose mild narration, bizarrely, keeps even Jin at ease.

Before he realizes it, they're there. He smiles thinly at the two before leaving Giorno to take care of Fugo so he can take care of the storefront's metal shutters. In the moment, it doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary: other stores have already closed and locked themselves up tight for security, what's one more to their number?

Once they're enclosed and safe, Jin makes his way back. He looks at Giorno expectantly, hoping to catch his gaze when he breaks eye contact with Fugo. For everyone's sake, he's still reserving his questions, opting instead for something simpler, to the point:]

What's next?

[Fugo doesn't see the look that Giorno gives Jin, or the way Jin looks down at him. He can't see anything. He doesn't hear much either, because he-- has to focus on the material he's reciting, because when he focuses he can filter out the screaming and the crying and the shouting. Purple Haze, howling with fury because every other time Fugo has been this afraid the fastest solution to the problem was to kill and he can't, he can't, he can't. The heavy sounds of people pushing and fighting around them. The only voice that reaches him is Giorno's. I have you: that's the promise he fixes on, that the hand locked in with his belongs to Giorno.

Left, right, left, right; they're making progress, he thinks. Giorno has him. They're halfway. Giorno hasn't let go. They're almost there. Giorno is still with him, even though it must hurt to be held onto so tightly.]

[He doesn't quite realize they've made it. He stands still, his eyes still tightly closed and his hand still balled tightly in Jin's jacket. He doesn't let go of until Giorno pulls him away and starts the process of easing him out of his head and back into thepresent. When he opens his eyes and looks at Giorno, they're so glassy and faraway, pupils enormous in his uncanny, red irises, it's obvious he doesn't see him. He looks very lost.]

Giogio? [He knows that he's there, though. You didn't hurt anyone. Fugo finally allows himself to shudder, because it's been a very long time since he's been this irrationally, foolishly frightened. (How did it get this bad? He's not really claustrophobic. Closed spaces, or densely packed crowds, are just places he avoids as a precaution, not something he's actually afraid of.) Too close. That was too close. But he didn't hurt anyone. Fugo's fingers twitch in Giorno's hands and, very quickly, his pupils contract and he's more himself again.]

Sono qui. Sto bene. [This quiet assurance is less for himself and more for Giorno, who looks so worried and afraid. Fugo's grip shifts and adjusts in Giorno's hands, still sure but not so painfully tight.]

[Giorno holds his breath. It's terrifying. Every time this happens, when Fugo just. Goes away. It scares the life out of him. What if he never comes back?]

[And he doesn't realize he does the same, at least not consciously, but some part of him remembers: what it was like to go away like that and never, ever want to come back. The world is cruel to broken children, which is why they try so hard to pretend that's not what they are.]

[But then Fugo focuses, his pupils contract, and he speaks again--I'm okay. Giorno exhales sharply. In the moment before he bows his head, his expression crumples with exhausted relief; then he rests his forehead on Fugo's shoulder and sighs, tries to figure out how to regulate his breathing. He used to know, a few minutes ago.]

You did so well, [he murmurs, soft and shaky.] I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you in a situation like this. But you did so, so well, you were so brave.

[And then he just has to stop talking for a moment. He has to figure out how to put his heart back together so he can keep moving. He knows how, generally, but he doesn't have time to worry about it too much right now, he has to be quick and keep moving to keep everyone safe. So he just closes his eyes for ten seconds, ten whole seconds, breathes in the smell of Fugo's shirt and grounds himself in the tight grip of his hands, and then--looks up again.]

[But.]

[Jin is looking at him.]

[There's something about his expression that doesn't . . . quite make sense. Like he's looking for something. Or is upset. Not just worried about the situation, but upset. It--reminds Giorno of something, maybe, but he doesn't know what, or doesn't want to think about it. It's too much.]

Thank you, [he tries to say, but his voice wavers on the second word, sounding teary and more overwhelmed than he ever wants to sound. He clears his throat and smiles tightly.] Thank you, Jin. We'll--need to stay here for a little while. Just until the crowd disperses a bit. We can't leave until people spread out more, it's not safe.

[He can't stand the break in Giorno's voice. It's reasonable to expect it when the gravity of the situation-- and of Fugo's burdens, taken hand in hand-- presses upon the three of them from every side. And yet it still doesn't belong there, a blip of an interruption in his perpetual confidence and energy: he can't stand that the smile disguises that Giorno, too, is scared, that there's something in those eyes that is lost, searching.

Jin, without thinking, rests a hand on Giorno's shoulderblade that slides down to his friend's upper arm. He squeezes him gently, as if to remind him of the feeling there, to draw him back to a world outside of the infallible Don Giovanna. The worry is still in his eyes, but he still nods in acknowledgment at the sight of that smile. It's clear he's not in any hurry to move until the two of them are prepared to pick up and go.

And, though hasty? Jin is not incapable of learning. He casts Fugo a concerned glance, too-- but he does not touch him. Giorno, he senses, is allowed past a specifically drawn boundary, and a nervous hand balled in his jacket doesn't count as allowing him past those walls yet.]

You guys all right?

[He looks between the two of them as he speaks, and pulls his hand away from Giorno at last.]

[Fugo isn't any taller than Giorno, really. They're of a height. Fugo is even thinner than Giorno is, because he can't seem to put the weight back on that he lost between Milano and Sicilia. Still: Fugo positions himself in front of Giorno, curling his narrow shoulders forward to give him as much cover as possible. He wants to hold him, but he can't do that without letting go of Giorno's hands-- and he refuses to do that.]

It isn't your fault. [It isn't Giorno's fault that there was an outbreak. And it isn't Giorno's fault, either, that Fugo is like this: damaged goods, inherently dangerous, messed up in a way that can't be fixed.] You were with me the whole time.

[They only have ten seconds. Fugo doesn't know the exact number, but he knows it's only a moment. And then he has to be more-or-less in the present again, because the situation is not one where he can fold himself into a crack in the farthest part of his head and run on autopilot. He can't let his head fill with white noise. He needs to think. He needs to be here, in this moment, with Giorno.]

[He didn't quite forget about Jin. It's just that there wasn't room in his head to remember him. Fugo watches him, wary and a little confused, as the pieces of what happened line up neatly in his head. Jin lead them here without arguing, or any commentary. Jin-- let him hold onto his jacket, even though all things considered it probably would have been safer for everyone to have their eyes open when making it through that crowd. And now Jin is reaching out to touch (comfort?) Giorno and is ... asking after them.

He doesn't get it. And he really doesn't have time to reason it out, either. Moreover, he's not even sure how to answer Jin's question.]

I'll be fine. I just need-- [Not to be closed up in a mall with a panicked crowd and infected. To be back home. To not be involved in any of this at all.] A moment. [...] I can't go out there again until the crowd is gone.

[Fugo looks from Jin to Giorno. He doesn't say anything, but there's a quiet, unnatural deference in his expression that doesn't fit with the story they just happen to be friends from home. What does Jin know? How much does Giorno want to tell him? How honest are they going to be?]

[Someone is touching him.]

[Rationally, Giorno knows who it is. It's Jin; of course it is. He can see Jin's hand connecting to his arm connecting to his shoulder. But at the same time Giorno can't be rational at all right now. The relief and the fear and all this unsafety, bound together tight as a braid, keep rationality as far from him as godhood.]

[All he knows, really knows, is that the hand on his arm is broad and strong. It isn't yanking him, but it could be. It isn't painful, but it could be. And if the person that hand belongs to chooses to hurt him, there's nothing he can do to stop it.]

[Rationally: not true. Experientially: wholly accurate.]

[He stiffens. Arms to shoulders to neck, he goes still and tense, like a rabbit caught in a trap. He's still looking at Fugo, but he's not looking at Fugo. What he's looking is, more than anything, like Fugo. Like they've just switched places, and he's the one who'll need to be led with eyes closed in a moment.]

[. . . And then he's fine, like nothing happened. His wan smile comes back, flickering briefly on his lips, before disappearing for good. Delicately, gently, he lifts his hand to push Jin away--but he's already gone.]

[Figures, he thinks, feeling bitter, and doesn't understand why. There's a problem to solve, anyway.]

. . . It'll be safest if he knows.

[He looks at Fugo measuringly, clawing his way through panic and nausea to self-control.]

Just the pertinent details. If you'd rather I tell him for you, I will. But he can best help us that way, Fugo.

[And just like that, Giorno goes cold, looking distant and betraying something outside of what he has known-- but within, he fears, the suspicions he has dreaded. What he has dreaded in Fugo's aversion to contact, too.

Kung Jin is still a trained fighter. He'd be remiss if he couldn't recognize a body steeling itself for a blow. Much less with his hand perched upon the muscle itself, Giorno's shoulder tensed up in a dreadful, instinctual anticipation.

For a moment, Giorno's hand hovers in the air, and he can only consider the subtle meaning in it, the reflex existing in the first place. Jin flexes his fingers and chews on the inside of his cheek, expression as unreadable as Fugo and Giorno had believed.]

Is this about your 'ability', Fugo? [asks Jin, his eyes landing upon Fugo. And, to dispel the suspicion that he might possibly already know something about it, that strange and deadly piece of Fugo's spirit, he quickly adds:]

I don't know anything. Promise. Just that you've got powers too.

[Giorno disappears. It's only for a moment. But for that horrifying, too-long moment, he is simply gone. Spirited away to a place in his head that Fugo can't reach no matter how far he strains to reach. He can't-- breathe. Bad air is caught in his throat and Giorno's fingers are so stiff and still in his hands. He's gone and all Fugo can do is hold onto him and wait for him to come back]

[One. Two. Three. Four. Five.]

[It takes so long. But Giorno does come back to them, with a smile that looks to Fugo like an open wound. He reacts. He lets go of Fugo with one hand and moves to push Jin's hand away half a heartbeat behind when Jin pulls away, the tightly wound tension in his shoulders going nowhere. He is still so afraid. Fugo doesn't think: he simply reacts, moving and shifting his grip so he can keep a hold of the one hand Giorno has left in his care between both of his.

Even if he could say it in front of Jin-- which he knows, for both of their sakes, that he can't-- he desperately wants to reaffirm the promise he made to Giorno on the bright, cold morning of October 24th and this is the only way he can think to do it.]

[He wants to be home. Home as in Napoli, in the room he barely had the chance to get used to thinking of his own. But he'd settle for the apartment with Sigma and Ramir, even though the couch has been torn apart and all the windows are closed up and boarded off and being in there for too long makes him feel like he's going to be sick.

But this is where they are right now: a closed down department store in a mall that is in the process of being locked in-- locked down, he viciously corrects himself-- with Kung Jin. Who ... needs to know. About Purple Haze. He shakes his head at Giorno's offer, mouth pressed into a thin, unhappy line.]

No. I can do it. No one should have to do it but me.

[He doesn't move to push his hair back into place, even though it's fallen in his eyes. He falls quiet. He doesn't even know where to begin, because he can't recall exactly how much Jin knows about Gold Experience and what he can do. But, eventually, he finds a way to start that is simple, direct, and at the heart of everything.]

I'm poison. [Conium maculatum, colloquially known as poison hemlock. In ancient Greece, it was given to prisoners condemned to death. Once he starts there, the rest comes easily.] I can create an airborne flesh-eating virus. The average time of death post-infection for adult males is thirty seconds. It's weak to any form of light.

My range is five meters. I can't control who gets infected. It reacts to my emotions. First anger. Then fear.

[No one should have to, Fugo says, and Giorno flinches. Even with his hand caught up in Fugo's, he feels struck. And then again, something hits him in the gut: I'm poison.]

[He hates it. It's just too real, too familiar. It's ugly, and every time he sees hemlock on the network it makes him want to scream or be sick or disappear.]

[He doesn't do either. His mouth forms a tight, taut line, trying to hold back not anger but hurt. He isn't angry with Fugo, he just--doesn't understand why he jabs at himself like this. Or maybe he does understand, and that makes it worse.]

Don't say it like that, [he hisses, his lips barely parting. The look in his eyes isn't one of a man giving an order, though; he's a boy pleading, please don't, Fugo, please don't, not anymore.] You know that's--not accurate.

[Not precisely. An exaggeration. Albeit perhaps an emotionally apt one, from Fugo's perspective.]

[Giorno's jaw tightens. He looks at Jin, bright and present in himself again as he begs in a different direction.]

It's his Stand. It's an ability his Stand has. It's something that needs to be factored into our tactics going forward. You needed to know--so you understand what we have to do to get out of here.

[He's poison?

He'd been expecting something dangerous, but nothing to the extent of Purple Haze. Thirty seconds to die... It's hardly enough time to register that one is dying at all, if one doesn't account for the sensation of your flesh being eaten away.

Jin won't ask just how much Purple Haze destroys. How much its touch obliterates, whether the body is simply left in pieces or destroyed completely by the end of those thirty grueling seconds. But he wonders in the absence of detail. That, alone, is enough.]

Your ability makes it. That's all. [echoes Jin decisively, not that he'd been asked. (He doesn't know how innate those abilities are to Pannacotta Fugo, and yet-- he knows that a boy who carries too many books and grabs the hem of his coat, anxious, in a crisis cannot be simple poison. No one should be. Not based on what they couldn't change; what they'd always had within them.)

Everything makes a little more sense now, set in the frame of Purple Haze. Anger. Then fear.
Jin cranes his neck over his shoulder at the closed door behind them, the muffled voices and footsteps of the other mallgoers.

If they're all going to stay safe, it's the first priority, isn't it? Keeping Fugo safe, and level-headed. He can't simply fight their way out the door without risking undue stress to the boy...

Back to what he was doing before, he supposes.]

Just tell me what you need from me. I'll do whatever I can.

[For their sake, and that of the others in this space.]

You said it was weak to light, didn't you? Would it help if we stuck to bright areas, in case... you know...

[Don't. That's all Giorno needs to say to make Fugo catch himself and just-- stop. He doesn't argue with Giorno or Jin, even though it's almost hilarious how wrong he is. Jin doesn't know anything about Stands; where they're come from, how they're born, exactly how connected they are to the people who wield them.

He doesn't say anything else about Purple Haze. His expression doesn't change at all; he doesn't take comfort in what Jin says, or is particularly hurt by the implication that he can't control his own Stand. Because that's just the truth.]

I can't go out there until the crowd is gone. [That's what he needs the most, more than anything. Because he can't quite meet Giorno's eyes anymore, Fugo looks down at their joined hands and wishes that he didn't have to say anything about Purple Haze.] We can wait it out in a brighter area of the store.

[Giorno wants to cry. Giorno wants to fall to his knees at Jin's feet, to press his face against Jin's stupid huge legs and sob until he's got no water left in him; he wants to pummel Jin with his fists because he's grateful, and because Jin said something so unbearably stupid, which he knows Fugo has already dismissed because of its phrasing.]

[He just wants someone to hold him. God, just for a minute. He doesn't want to have to be strong right now, but he has to, because Fugo is fracturing and falling away in pieces, and Jin has no idea how to handle this situation. No idea how to handle Fugo.]

[He has to fix it. He always has to fucking fix it.]

[With a long, measured exhale, he collects himself. It's okay, he tells himself, lying.]

That would be the best idea, yes.

[His voice sounds so strong. What an incredible liar I am, he thinks.]

The more open and the brighter a space is, the safer we'll be. Fortunately, this mall has skylights. [Ha ha.]

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[EVENT POST] I FEEL STUPID, AND CONTAGIOUS.

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cw child abuse implied

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